A couple of weeks ago I headed off to the UK for a number of reasons, here’s the low-down of what went on.
Training
My company sent me on a SQL developer training course, although it didn’t go as well as I was expecting it to. In fact, on the first day of the course I quite bluntly confirmed that I would be failing it. The course outline in no way reflected the actual content of the course and has since – I believe – been revised. We were under the impression that I would be learning more-so about real development using MS SQL Server but alas it covered things I had never even heard of and more worrying was the fact that I hadn’t done the pre-requisite so when it came to one of the day’s where we’d talking about subject y, you’d have to have first learnt about subject x in the pre-req course leaving me quite abandoned for a whole day. 90% of the time I was there I think I was in another world just trying to understand what was being spoken about let alone learning about the subject matter. I kept up with the reading but was swamped with chapters on subjects I’d never even heard of when in relation to SQL server. Questions such as “Would you use the Service Broker to do this?” were quickly responded to with another question such as “What is the Service Broker?” – I was then told that it couldn’t be taught in this course and was something that we should know already.
Sufficed to say my work mates were extremely supportive amongst my incoherent stressful ranting and instead I managed to approach the content with a more constructive approach by taking as much out of it as I can (which I believe I did). Ultimately I failed both of the exams, but there was only a 30% pass rate out of our class so I didn’t feel so bad after I had learnt that others on the course who had ten times the amount of experience and knowledge in SQL server and had actually done the pre-req and failed this course. I feel terrible for saying so, and I’d never want to feel happy out of someone’s failure, but I felt more comforted to know that even those whom had experience and knowledge in the correct areas found it quite difficult. I’m sure they won’t have a problem passing the course when they re-take the exams.
Unfortunately the company we dealt with have a few lines of service, the first being customer support, those whom only have to know what the course consists of and work on a “we pay you by customer” basis just allowed me to go on the course fully well knowing I didn’t have enough knowledge or experience which is a big let down for the company and now we know that our internal discussions about the course should not be persuaded by training company employee opinions.
I actually didn’t fail by much, the course works on a pass/fail basis where you have to get 70% or over, I think I got something like 59% which isn’t bad considering that I knew absolutely nothing about any of the course content and it was a six day course. Due to an NDA I signed I’m unable to speak about much of the course content or anything about the exam whatsoever.
London
My wife joined me a few days after I finished the course where we stayed in Oxford – she hadn’t been to London before so we decided to do a few tourist things such as London Dungeon and The Tower of London which were okay. My wife knows a scary amount about history so she gave me all of the realistic details. We got to check out the crown jewels which were probably the most impressive part of The Tower. It was absolutely packed considering it was a gloomy February day.
The London Dungeon was an absolute nightmare considering the local schools decided to send in all of their children in a few buses worth. The queue lasted about 30 minutes before a friendly staff member noticed that real tourists had come and were receiving some incredibly bad service and decided to bump us up the queue and push us to the front. The Dungeon was more of a visual thing rather than a factual thing, and there’s an incredibly crap water ride inside. Fortunately we got in on the two-for-one offer that’s all over London.
We went to Oxford Street shortly after just so I could show my wife the real central London. We went in a few shops but we’ve not got much money after all of this so decided not to go shopping.
Hospital
The real purpose of the second week of my trip to the UK was to go into hospital for a prolonged EEG which lasts a few days. Basically they hook you up to a machine where twenty-two probes are super glued to your scalp and a heart monitor is attached then you’re sent off on your way to monitor brain activity and heart rate. It was quite uncomfortable and I felt like quite the idiot walking around even with my hoody up. We went out on the Thursday night for dinner with some friends in Oxford where we were staying. We had an amazing night just catching up really and I ended up taking my hood off as it got so hot. I think the entire restaurant just stared at me the entire time trying to figure out what was going on. My friend whom I won’t name thought it’d be funny to tell the staff “he’s terminal” so they’d stop staring (and try and get a free meal) – whilst hilarious as it was I quickly stopped him 
We got a chance to actually watch my brain waves live which was quite weird. It looked much like any regular line graph with four different sections which all looked like a flat-line heart monitor. When the graph suddenly changed and all the monitors dipped rapidly I got quite worried until the neuro guy said to me “that’s what happens when you blink”. Your brain waves go through a radical change when you blink, otherwise they look quite regular so it was really interesting to see this live.
Safely Returned
Sufficed to say, I couldn’t wait to get back. Going to the UK wasn’t the best time for me as I’ve been just so busy and loads of things have been going on. I’m actually looking forward to going back to work which isn’t that surprising as I really enjoy my job and feel I’m a bit more equipped for dealing with our large-scale databases which grow an extraordinary amount each day. I’ve realised that the difference between SQL 2000 and SQL 2008 are so big that if you were a professional SQL 2000 developer it’s absolutely vital that you train for SQL 2005+ because Microsoft have actually pulled their finger out and done a really good job by providing some exceptional tools. Although I’d just like to point out here is that the only real Microsoft software I like are their developer tools (i.e. VS and SSMS).
Also, tomorrow my brother is leaving the island for at least a few years so we went out for dinner with him tonight as a send off. In the last couple of years he’s had pneumonia, cancer and loads of other illnesses so I’m hoping that in places like India and China where he’s headed don’t destroy his immune system more than it already has been but I think it’ll be really good for him.